Change Management Consultant Guide Bonus ebook How to create even more authority and presence using the web Your ultimate weapon to getting and sustaining change 1 Stuart Corrigan Vanguard Scotland Ltd Page 1
Important information Disclaimer Our ebooks are designed to provide information about the subject matter covered. They are sold with the understanding that the author and the publisher are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Every effort has been made to make our ebooks as complete and accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes both typographical and in content. Therefore, the texts should be used only as general guides and not as the ultimate sources on the subject matters covered. The author and the publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information covered in the ebooks. The results you see in this ebook may be different from the results you will achieve. Results will vary and depend on the time and effort individuals invest. Copyright Copyright 2010 Stuart Corrigan (Vanguard Scotland Ltd). All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be copied, sold, altered or rewritten without consent from Stuart Corrigan. However, You may email and re-distribute this ebook to friends and colleagues. You may also publish it online. If you wish to find out about how you can personalise this ebook with your own logo, get in touch by emailing stuart@vanguardscotland.co.uk 2 Page 2
Being Everywhere Having grasped the concept of authority, imagine taking it to another level. Imagine a situation where anytime or place your client went searching for information on your authority subject your name came up again and again? Wouldn t this enhance your credibility, wouldn t it further validate that you were the guru in your chosen arena, and wouldn t it mean that the client s desire to do business with you would be significantly enhanced? Assuming you agree, the question becomes ok so how do I do it? The strategies I m about to outline for you are designed to leverage the work you ve already done in producing reports and articles. 3 Page 3
Strategy 1 Getting your articles indexed and shown on the first page of Google W ouldn t you like a situation whereby if you produced an article, Google would pick it up and it would be shown on the first page for the whole world to see? It would take your credibility to another level if your client did a search on Google and your article came up first wouldn t it? Here s a great example, last year I wrote an article designed to be read by internal consultants. As I wrote this ebook I checked to see where that article was on Google and guess what... it s top of the first page and it s been there for a year. So every time that you write an article why not also put it on the internet. 4 Page 4
Here s how to do it. Step 1 Choose a keyword that your client will be searching for Step 2 Check the competitiveness of the keyword Step 3 Find the LSI keywords Step 4 Write the article naturally around the keywords and LSI keywords Step 5 Load the article on to an article directory Step 6 Wait and watch your article climb in the rankings Step 7 Submit your article to a few more directories Let s now go into each of these steps in more detail. 5 Page 5
Step 1 Choose a keyword that your client will be searching for Search engines like Google work on matching up a website, website page or video to a customer s query. Most important to a search engine is that they re seen as making the most relevant match. All the search engines also capture statistics on the keywords (a word or phrase) that customers type in to find relevant information, which means that you can tell in advance how many visits your article might get, assuming of course that you get it onto the first page of a major search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. For example let s say that you wanted to write an article on how to use PowerPoint in presentations. If you go to the Google keyword tool and enter some relevant keywords (See Figure 1) How to use PowerPoint PowerPoint tutorial Learn PowerPoint Figure 1: Google keyword tool 6 Page 6
Google will return searches for those keywords and others which it thinks are relevant. (See Figure 2) Figure 2: Keywords related to your search As you can see from the results PowerPoint tutorial gets 22,200 searches per month, which means that if you can get your article onto the first position for that keyword you ll have the potential to get around 60% of the search volume, down to position 10 which gets around 3%. Step 2 Check the competitiveness of the keyword You also need to know how many other people are using that exact keyword for their websites and articles as they are your competition. To test your competition put your keyword in quotes for example PowerPoint Tutorial in the Google search box. The number shown underneath is the number of competitors. At only 33,000 competitors, using this keyword in the right way would give you a good chance of getting your article on the front page. 7 Page 7
Personally I try to look for keywords with over 4,000 searches (so there s enough traffic to make it worth your while) and under 35,000 competitors (to make it fairly easy to get ranked highly). The URL for the Google keyword tool is: https://adwords.google.com/select/keywordtoolexternal To use the keyword tool simply enter your keyword (don t fill in the website box) and hit search. Step 3 Find your LSI keywords Once you ve found a keyword that you want to use for your article the next thing to do is to choose your LSI keywords. LSI means Latent Semantic Indexing which simply means words which Google think are relevant to the keyword (for example if you were writing about dog collars then dog leashes might be one of your LSI keywords). You want to include these words or phrases in your article so that the Google bots can recognise the subject matter. The LSI tool is called the Google Wonder Wheel and it can be found on the left hand side of any search results page (See Figure 3). Please note you usually have to be signed out of any Google accounts for the wonder wheel to appear. 8 Page 8
Figure 3: Where to find Google Wonder Wheel Tool Figure 4: LSI results display from the Wonder Wheel Tool for PowerPoint Tutorial To use the Wonder Wheel, once you ve opened it from the sidebar, simply enter your keyword in the Google search box, as usual; it will quickly return your LSI keywords. 9 Page 9
As you can see from Figure 4, when I enter PowerPoint tutorial, it tells me the words that Google wants to see in an article so that they know the article is relevant to PowerPoint tutorial. According to the search engine gurus LSI keywords can represent as much as 30% of the overall weighting as to whether your article or webpage gets shown on page one. Step 4 Write the article naturally around the keywords Your article should read like you didn t know about the keywords and that they ve just appeared in your article naturally. The Google bots are very intelligent and if it looks like your article is contrived or you are overusing the keywords, Google will not show the article. So you should use your primary keyword in the article title and then once in the opening paragraph, then a couple more times, for example maybe the second paragraph and the last paragraph. Use your LSI keywords once each (if they fit naturally) in the article. Article directories usually have a resource box which allows you to link back to a webpage (if you don t have a webpage you could use a Facebook fan page). The text that you use to link back to a website is called anchor text so instead of using click here or similar as your link text, you should also try to use your keyword in the anchor text for your link, for example - visit the PowerPoint tutorial website. Linking articles back to your webpage is great for getting traffic and if you re using the article as a teaser to give away a free report it s a great way to give a sample of your content. Step 5 Load the article onto an article directory 10 Page 10
My favourite, and the most authoritative directory, is Ezine articles. As you can see from the figure below, loading only 28 articles on to Ezine articles has got me over 3710 views and 306 visits to my website. All for free. Figure 5: E-Zine article statistics You can register for an account at http://ezinearticles.com/ Step 6 Wait and watch It will take a few days for your article to be found by Google, and then a few weeks for it to start to rank. Don t worry if it appears and re-appears for a few days, it happens. Finally a little disclaimer - Google are constantly changing their criteria for what ranks and what gets ditched. Sometimes I will do everything perfectly on my article and it just never moves past page 10. On others I will just throw an article together and it ranks in days and stays on the front page. So the lesson is to write lots and lots of articles. 11 Page 11
Step7 Submit your article to other directories Why rely on just one directory? Why not submit it to as many as you can. There are hundreds of article directories on-line so all you have to do is register and get submitting...well not quite. Directories and search engines do not like duplicate content so before you go submission happy make sure that every time you re-submit the article change your heading, your subhead, and at least twenty percent of the content. There are software programmes that will do this for you but unless you re planning on submitting to more than 10 sites every day I would just make the changes naturally as it gives better results. Alternatively try www.fastsubmitarticles.com they have a great service and will submit your articles to other sites for only a few dollars. Finally here s a list of some of the top article submission sites: http://www.elib.org http://www.americasbest.com http://www.businessseek.biz http://www.canlinks.net http://www.clickey.com http://www.qango.com http://www.searchwiz.com http://www.skaffe.com http://www.somuch.com http://www.turnpike.net http://www.amray.com http://www.axelis.com http://www.best-websites.net http://www.businessplexus.com http://directory.cipinet.com http://searchsight.com/directory.htm http://www.directory.portalit.net http://www.directorygold.com http://www.dirspace.com http://www.massivelinks.com http://www.maxpromo.com http://www.megri.com http://www.pedsters-planet.co.uk http://www.pleasecretrieve.com http://www.poddys.com http://www.blisswolff.com/directory http://www.c2000.com/links http://www.geeksonsteroids.com/directory http://www.comoestamos.com 12 Page 12
Strategy 2 Turning your articles and reports into ebooks T his short ebook started as a blog, then I decided to write a few articles on the subject. I put the articles together and then it became a short 10-page report. I kept going and now it s a small ebook. What better way to create authority than writing your own book, the problem is that it just seems so daunting doesn t it? If you d told me one year ago that I have produced four separate ebooks and audio products I would have laughed. But here they are: Secrets of High Performing Organisations Secrets to High Performing Call Centres Project Management System Presentations that Make Change And every one of them started as an article, then I wrote another article and then a report and before I knew it I had a book. I did however have a secret weapon Duncan Fisher. I didn t start my first degree until I was in my thirties. The problem was that I didn t think I had the aptitude to get a degree. I needed help with my writing. I met Duncan and he taught me his system. I went on to get my degree and then an MBA and finally a post graduate certificate. I may not be the best writer but I do have a system for getting my thoughts on paper. So why not just start small. Write one article, then a second and a third and then put them into a report. Start again and produce a second report. Put three reports together and you ll have an ebook. Thus you can have your clients getting your articles, reports and ebooks and before long you ll be speaking at conferences and you ll have massive authority. Whether you re an internal or external consultant what better way to start a new consulting assignment than to have the client come to you. 13 Page 13
You can get a copy of Duncan s system at www.academicessaywriting.org Once you have written an ebook you can upload it to an ebook distribution site. This is another great way of getting traffic to your website. Last year I wrote a report called 10 reasons why change programmes fail. You can get it here: 10 Reasons why change programmes fail We get around 100 new visitors every month from people downloading and forwarding that report. Here s a few of the top ebook distribution sites: http://www.virtual-ebooks.com http://www.ebooksubmit.com http://www.thefreesite.com http://www.freehound.com http://www.infochoiceuk.com So get going, write a few articles, produce a report and get that book written! 14 Page 14
Strategy 3 Turn your articles into audio N ot everyone likes to read, some people would rather listen to your thoughts while they drive or workout, so why not accommodate them? Simply download a free audio editing programme called Audacity and record yourself reading your article, report or ebook. Then you can upload it to an audio distribution site. Here s a few to get you going: www.mefeedia.com www.hardpodcafe.com www.itunes.com Summary Take Action So there you have it, everything you need to know about how to dominate that space where your clients and potential clients spend their time. But nothing will happen unless you take action. So get going and write the first article and send it out to the world, you just never know what will happen! 15 Page 15
Get more Expert Advice, Tips & More If you d like more information on building a presence on the internet go to : http://www.smallbusinessmarketingblog.net/ For information on joining Stuart s change management blog go to: http:///blog-welcome.php 16 Page 16